Integrating Electrical and Mechanical Engineering Students Through a Multidisciplinary Capstone Design Project to Achieve ABET Student Outcomes

Abstract

Abstract. This article presents a multidisciplinary capstone design framework that integrates electrical engineering (EE) and mechanical engineering (ME) students at the Civil Aviation & Meteorology College, Libya (CAMC), through the collaborative development, integration, and validation of capstone design projects. The capstone experience is designed to emulate professional engineering practice by organizing students into coordinated subteams responsible for mechanical design and fabrication, electronics, control and data acquisition, and software development. This structure enables students to investigate, integrate, and apply knowledge across multiple technological domains while addressing realistic engineering constraints. The article provides a detailed description of the system architecture, subsystem designs, integration methodology, and experimental testing results. Faculty mentoring and industry partners’ informed practices are incorporated to strengthen the alignment between academic learning and professional engineering expectations. Student assessment strategies are explicitly mapped to student outcomes (SO1–SO7) and include project deliverables, faculty evaluations, and peer-to-peer ratings to measure both individual contributions and multidisciplinary teamwork. Assessment results from projects involving 12 EE and ME students divided into three groups indicate that interdisciplinary capstone experiences significantly enhance student competencies in system-level design, technical communication, and professional readiness, while effectively satisfying Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) accreditation requirements.